This week on the show we’re questioning the traditions and assumptions around the role of family in farming.  “When something goes wrong in the family relationship, it can really affect the farm business, and when something goes wrong in the farm business, it can really affect the family relationship–which has big implications for things like food security–although we often don’t look at it that way.” My guest is sociologist Dr. Ike Leslie, of the University of New Hampshire. Join us for a conversation about Queering the Food System. 

“I often say that the only choice we don’t have in such a connected world, the only choice we don’t have is whether to change the world--because every act we take and don’t take is sending out ripples and we’ll never know the impact of our choices.” This week on Earth Eats, a conversation with Frances Moore Lappé. She’s the acclaimed author of the groundbreaking book, Diet for a Small Planet, which turned 50 years old in 2021. She’s co-founder (with her daughter Anna Lappé) of the Small Planet Institute: living democracy, feeding hope. Lappe has continued the work she began a half-century ago, of bringing analysis and insight to the study of our food systems and how they need to change for our own health and for the health of the planet.  

“Many of the farmers talked about the ability to be out in nature with other members of their family and other members of their community and several of them also talked about the benefits of being able to interact with people from other communities.”  This week on the show, we talk with geographer Pablo Bose about innovative resettlement projects that help refugees connect with familiar foods from home, through gardening in community with others.

“There's a different time…what I would say–like a lifely, real time, and to be able to have, at least moments, periodically, in our lives, where we're attuned to that. And the attunement sometimes is also really pleasurable. It's like a deeply pleasurable attunement to ourselves--as not apart from, but in fact, in fact, life…as life.” This week on the show, we pick serviceberries with Ross Gay and contemplate abundance, time and connection with loved ones through foraging.  Tracy Branam shows off his expansive wild strawberry patch on the banks of a pond. We talk about following a calendar of wild foods, and looking forward to the delights each season brings. 

“You gotta take the phyllo dough, put it down on your station. One person takes the butter, garlic, lemon juice mixture, wipes it down.  And then someone else spoons on the filling, and then they fold it. And then the butter person butters the outside, puts it in the baking tin. And then you gotta immediately start the next dough...” This week on the show, Kayte Young hands the mic to producer Daniella Richardson for one special episode. As host, Daniella talks with friends about the foundational foods that have shaped their lives and their perspectives on human connection.

“I knew that this was gonna be a little bit of an adventure, because I’ve never done this before. And so, I’m sure I’m gonna make some stupid mistake that your listeners are gonna be laughing at me while I’m doing this.”  From WFIU in Bloomington Indiana, this is earth eats and I’m your host Kayte Young This week on the show, just in time for the hot pepper harvest, we revisit a story from 2019 about a novice hot sauce maker and one from 2020 about tasting the hottest of the hot peppers. Plus, a piece about lab studying home sourdough starters and a new story from Harvest about. All that just ahead stay with us. 

“We have about a four acre parcel of land here that’s subdivided into a whole bunch of micro-plots, basically, where we can isolate, you know, the Black Strawberry Tomato, or the Chinese Wool Flower or a gourd or whatever it happens to be. And we can make sure that those seeds stay pure. Purity is one of the biggest things that we do here. We do a lot of purity trials, so we maintain that the seed we’re selling [to] somebody–we wanna make sure that that seed is 100% true to type.” This week on the show we visit Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company to learn the particulars of growing for plants for seed.  And Violet Baron talks with the owners of Lost Farm Meal Service about growing a business during a pandemic. 

“I’ve been mushroom hunting before and you'll kind of squat down and look in between all of the low plants, and then you move to the other side and you look on the other side and all of a sudden you see like four, and they’re right there.” This week it’s the third installment of our special series, Earth Eats Eats Wild– a nine-part seasonal special all about foraging for wild food. We couldn’t wrap up our spring season without a morel hunt–where we share secrets that might help YOU spot a few this year.  And we talk with The Forager Chef, Alan Bergo, about  what it’s like to eat a pine tree, and we walk through the steps of making spruce tip ice cream. 

“She introduced me to Susan Weed’s books, and chickweed is in one of the herbal healing books. And it’s talked about as this star-shaped plant that kind of dances–that that’s it’s energy [laughs].” This week on our special series, Earth Eats Eats Wild, we’ll be talking chickweed with Stephanie Solomon, preparing purple deadnettle deviled eggs, harvesting spicebush and ramps in the woods with Jill Vance, and frying up crunchy fritters made with dandelion flowers.

“And you’re stepping into–sinking really–into this clay that’s surrounding your feet, and there’s also some sticks in there, and you know, there’s bugs and spiders on the water…” This week on the show we kick off the Eats Wild special series, all about foraging and edible wild plants. Monique Philpot, founder of the forest and folk school Soulcraft Bloomington, takes us out to discover wild food in unexpected places, and shares stories of growing up in two places with different food cultures. We sample treats from feasts prepared by children and by college students, and we talk about what love’s got to do with it…with foraging, that is. 

“I had six different people’s donations of basil in my dish yesterday, and that’s what made it work.”  This week on the show, we talk with Heather Craig of the Community Kitchen of Monroe County about cooking for a crowd everyday, improvising in the face of uncertainty, and sourcing ingredients from the community.  Plus, stories from Harvest Public Media about rural grocery stores and the effects of the Trump administration USDA cuts on farmers and rural residents. 

“At least a hundred years ago, the last robber barons, we got nice libraries out of it. This one, it’s like ‘oh, what is the family using its money for? To gut public education via charter school networks?’ It’s kind of Machiavellian–it’s Machiavellian in a really sad way” This week on the show, I’m talking with Austin Frerick, the author of Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry. Frerick uncovers the sometimes shocking facts about seven large companies who play an outsized role in our nation’s food system. From hog barons to coffee barons, to Indiana’s own dairy barons, Fair Oaks farm.

“So if you were a giraffe or an elephant you would go along in your world and you would consume things off of trees. And so we try to mimic, as best we can, what we call browse, which is edible tree material.” This week on the show, Toby Foster talks with Barbara Henry at the Cincinnati Zoo. She’s the one who figures out what each of the animals need to eat, where to source their food and the best ways to feed the animals to ensure that they thrive. 

“In the first Trump administration, about 350 thousand people from Central America or Mexico were given these H2A visas to come in temporarily with labor contractors. And many of them seem to have overstayed their visas because their labor is needed. We can’t pick the crops in this country without them.” This week on the show, we welcome back geographer Elizabeth Cullen Dunn. She is the director of the Center for Refugee Studies at Indiana University and we’ll talk with her about how changes in federal policy, especially around immigration affect our food system, including prices at the grocery store.

“Our younger generation, and mainly the girls, have got hearing, and they can hear that high frequency squeals that the vacuum puts off, and man they can just go in the woods and start finding ‘em and you just cut that out put a connector in, put another one in and they can just run through the woods fixin’ holes. Older guys that can’t hear, you’re a strugglin’ trying to find ‘em [laughs].” This week on the show we head out to Groundhog Road Maple Farm in Bedford to learn all about the family business that dates back to the 1880s. Ed Miller and his friends and family have modernized the operation in recent years. We’ll learn how the syrup gets from the maple tree in the forest to the pancakes on your plate.

“The goal with the collective is to bridge that gap–so then there is a lot more equity and a lot more opportunity. Because these coffees are incredible and most of the time when they’re coming from people of marginalized identities, those people are ensuring that they’re honoring  the farmers as well–and so the farmers are then getting equitable pay. And so it’s creating that throughout the supply chain.” This week on the show we’re talking coffee with Korie Griggs about the Color of Coffee Collective. They’re working to support equitable access in the world of specialty coffee. She also has a message about slowing down and taking time to smell the coffee. And we have stories from Harvest Public Media about growing a new super fruit in the Midwest, and returning buffalo to Native tribes.

“When the phorid arrive, the ants release a pheromone that tells their nest mates, all the other ants that are in the vicinity, their sisters that are in the vicinity, tells them ‘Careful! The phorid are here! You better go back to your nest or get paralyzed.’” This week on the show, we get to nerd out on insects with Ivette Perfecto who studies biodiversity and agroecology. She’s got some wild stories to tell about bugs on coffee plants and the importance of understanding the delicate balance between species.

“A community is not resilient unless those benefits that we have from natural resources, like urban trees, are distributed in a way that all people are benefiting from them. And we do know that we have areas of the city that have lower canopy cover and some of those are associated also with lower income communities and marginalized communities.  And arguably those are the people [who] would be most benefited  by ecosystem services and the benefits of trees.” This week on the show, a conversation with Sarah Mincey and Hannah Gregory of Canopy Bloomington, an organization dedicated to community engagement with the urban forest.  

“Studying food is a way to study how we are connected to the world of life around us. Whatever we think about humans being so cerebral, so intellectual–it really breaks down because we are a part of everything else around us.”  This week on the show we talk with the author of The Book of Yerba Mate, Christine Folch about how one plant can tell us so much about ourselves, and the world around us.